Page:In the Roar of the Sea.djvu/238

230 dared not meet them, for there would be a shrinking from him, no responsive leap of flame from hers.

"Shall I carry you about like this?" he asked. "I could and I would, to the world's end, and leap with you thence into the unfathomed abyss."

Her head, leaning back on his arm, with the gold rain falling from it, exposed her long and delicate throat of exquisite purity of tint and beauty of modelling, and as it lay a little tuft of pink tamarisk blossom, brushed off in her lap into his arms, and then caught in the light edging of her dress, at the neck.

"And you come to me of your own will?" he said.

Then Judith slightly turned her head to avoid his eyes, and said, "I have come—it was unavoidable. Let me down, that we may speak together."

He obeyed with reluctance. Then, standing before him, she bound up and fastened her hair.

"Look!" said he, and threw open his collar. A ribbon was tied about his throat. "Do you see this?" He loosed the band and held it to her. One delicate line of gold ran along the silk, fastened to it by threads at intervals. "Your own hair. The one left with me when you first heard me speak of my heart's wish, and you disdained me and went your way. You left me that one hair, and that one hair I have kept wound round my neck ever since, and it has seemed to me that I might still have caught my goldfish, my saucy goldfish that swam away from my hook at first."

Judith said calmly "Let us walk together somewhere—to St. Enodoc, to my father's grave, and there, over that sand-heap we will settle what must be settled."

"I will go with you where you will. You are my Queen, I your subject—it is my place to obey."

"The subject has sometimes risen and destroyed the Queen; it has been so in France."

"Yes, when the subject has been too hardly treated, too down-trodden, not allowed to look on and adore the Queen."

"And," said Judith further, "let us walk in silence, allow me the little space between here and my father's grave to collect my thoughts, bear with me for that short distance."

"As you will. I am your slave, as I have told you, and you my mistress have but to command."